Posts Tagged ‘TAPS’

Continuing with the mentally challenged Episode 312 of the now so- beyond-reality-show-it’s-passing-the-Oort-cloud Ghost Hunters, the almost equally mentally challenged Talking Mongoose and Mme. Blahblatsky recarp the half where the Perry Mason Studios are investigated. The first half of this episode is here, in The Assent of K2.

TM: Red Skelton Studios, and speak for yourself regarding mentally challenged. You know, it strikes me that there are an awful lot of clowns involved in this episode.

MB: I’d like to see Perry Mason investigate TAPS. Then they’d be sorry.

In which TAPS reveals the full extent of its esteem for its pathetic fans, by pretending to lower the temperature of a room, and using a blinky EMF detector as an electronic ouija board, and faking a ghost and a debunking of said ghost without even having the courtesy to try to be realistic and generally makes it crystal-ball clear they despise us, their audience gullible enough to watch them. Also, they can’t like themselves much anymore, and their shrink bills must be huge, if they went to shrinks, and I’m sure they don’t, but they should.

Tm: So, we’re having some fun then. A little irked, Mme. B?

MB: Moi?

TM: I assume there’s an ass in assent.

MB: There is. More than one.

Okay, so this is another Talking Mongoose/Mme. Blahblatsky recarp of the infamous Episode 312 of the fantasy reality show Ghost Hunters, in which TAPS plays a battery-powered version of Twenty Questions in a house that is nearish but not really on the site of the ghastly Manson murders. Also, they invade the home of the Muppets. We would say things can’t get much more ridiculous than this episode, but we have seen the future, and we would be wrong. This episode has probably been talked about enough, but we wanted to add our two cents.

TM: Four cents.

MB: Four cents?

TM: I am no penny-ante. Plus we need more to jam the K2 switch.

Disclosure: As always, I have worked my fingers to a nubbin to retrieve every last bit of tedious dialogue that belongs to Pilgrim Television and Films, Inc, who are perfectly aware that said dialogue is so not worth retrieving and have probably had a number of snorts over my idiotic efforts.

TM: There’s a theme here, I’m thinking.

MB: Alas, yes.

Episode 312

Narrator: “On this episode of Ghost Hunters, TAPS heads for the Hollywood hills to investigate the scene of the Manson family massacre. Has the spirit of the murdered actress Sharon Tate returned to the neighborhood? Then, TAPS takes center stage at the old Charlie Chaplin studios. Will the ghost of the former owner make a surprise appearance?”

Credits roll. Dave Tango is still in training, in the world’s longest apprentice program to learn absolutely nothing.

TM: You have to work at learning nothing. Things get by you without constant vigilance.

MB: He’s probably being forced to unlearn things.

TM: Like reason and logic.

MB: And grammar.

Jason and Grant are “plumbing.”

Grant: “All right, so.”

Jason: “She lost her wedding ring?”

Grant: “Yeah.”

Jason: “So we’re gonna have to pull the trap system. Yeah.”

Grant is groveling under a sink. A phone rings.

TM: We haven’t seen the phone call while plumbing scene in ages. I missed it!

MB: I’d be more convinced if that ring came out with a giant hunk of hair.

The luck of the Irish ran out in 2006 with an invasion from the west, in the form of our fake plumbers from Warwick. Mme. Blahblatsky and the Talking Mongoose recarp Ghost Huntersepisode 306, The Attack of the Irish Elemental. Whether the TAPS guys actually know what an elemental is, we honestly can’t tell you.

Talking Mongoose Spoiler: this is a Landmark Episode not because it marks the start of the scary amoeba-like splitting of this bizarre franchise, but because they have given up on the stationary camera, the one thing that was supposed to provide “proof” of the existence of ghosts. This is terribly disappointing.

MB: You’re not disappointed at all.

TM: Nope.

Disclaimer: All dialogue quoted belongs to Pilgrim Films & Television, Inc., who are still, three seasons on, too embarrassed to send it out for captioning so Mme. Blahblatsky is still exposing herself to severe brain damage doing the transcribing. It is a good thing she is amused by very little.

MB: You know there’s no way I’d be doing this otherwise, don’t you?

TM: I do.

MB: Because really, this is an insane thing to do.

TM: It’s a good thing you have all your shots.

Narrator: On this episode of Ghost Hunters, TAPS heads to Ireland for their first overseas investigation at LeapCastle…

The Talking Mongoose and Madame Blahblatsky are recarping episode 219 of Ghost Hunters, the end product of which should have been the white crow of The Atlantic Paranormal Society. Unless it was a black crow. We don’t know.

TM: It could be black and white. Striped.

MB: You’re just saying that to encourage me to go on.

We left Jason and Grant recovering at Mission Control after chasing a crow ghost up the stairs at the St. Augustine Lighthouse, or so we are to believe. See Part I here.

Mme. Blahblatsky and the Talking Mongoose recarp St. Augustine Lighthouse, episode 19 of the second season of the putative reality show Ghost Hunters, in which a couple of fake plumbers continue their attempts to become paranormal answer to Penn and Teller.

MB: Hey – what did you do to that lighthouse?

TM: I shortened it, for Steve and his acrophobia.

MB: How thoughtful.

Soit’s been a while since we’ve done this. The Talking Mongoose has been nagging me (Mme. Blahblatsky, the default secretary of the Ouija Board), insinuating that we are missing out on some fabu stuff by abandoning ship in the middle of the second season. There’s no way I’m going to continue to transcribe every single asinine episode, but I’ve consented to do a few select ones. The Talking Mongoose promises this one makes up for the other lighthouse episodes.

TM: I did not. I said it might.

MB: I thought there was going to be a real ghost!

TM: I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. Who can tell?

MB: There’d better be.

Disclaimer: Sole proprietorship and full blame for the quoted dialogue belongs to Pilgrim Films & Television, Inc., who saw fit to disseminate it on the public airwaves. We still think they’ve got an illegal dump for the out-takes somewhere off Block Island.

Announcer: On this episode of Ghost Hunters, TAPS hunts for spirits in Florida’s oldest lighthouse. Will Steve’s fear of heights hamper the investigation? And what has the team frantically running up the stairs?

There is a lot of fast-cut commotion. Then Brian issues the singular judgment: “This is the Mona Lisa of all paranormal activity.”

MB: Well, that’s all I need. I’m in.

TM: I told you so.

The old credits roll, with everyone trying to look extra-dashing and earnest.

TM: Look! Donna is still the case manager.

MB: And Brian has been reduced to a mere investigator, but why is Dave still an investigator-in-training when he’s the only one who figured out the Queen Mary hoax?

TM: That would be why!

MB: Oh. Look. Race Rock Lighthouse, when we were all younger and stupider.

TM: Someone sent me a link to a supposedly haunted doll a few months ago, which I showed to Mme. Blahblatsky and she shrieked “My eyes! My eyes!” It seemed she was looking at a picture of the doll in the arms of our favorite ghost hunters, Hans and Franz, and objected to them more than the doll. I have been reminding ever since, lo these many months, that we have unfinished business here, and it might be good therapy. So as it’s Halloween, she’s agreed to come back and heap some abuse on the Warwick mountebanks, in honor of the season.

MB: Lordy. It has been months. Okay, almost edging into years. I got really really peeved after that Fort Delaware debacle last Halloween, and frankly, I don’t think Ghost Hunters is worth a red cent at this point, but the Talking Mongoose has talked me into continuing. I’d finished the transcript way back in Ought-8, so all we had to do was – god help us – watch it again and complain.

We left Taps stranded in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, half-way through episode 213 of Ghost Hunters, right after they presented the thermal reflection of Grant on a metal locker as a ghost. Grost. Ghant. We don’t think they can really cap this, but the Talking Mongoose says they’re going to get something special next. So let’s see.

The disclaimer from part one still applies – dialogue, Pilgrim, oil drums, blah blah blah. (And now we think we know the origins of the Montauk monster.)

THE PITCH

DR. ELLIS’ HOUSE

THURSDAY 3:00 PM

The gang has assembled at the van for a pep rally.

Jason: “This home’s supposedly one of the most haunted homes around this area. It was a physician, Dr. Ellis.”

Grant: “Dr. Ellis – he was the guy that supposedly came out of the elevator and went to that room.”

Dustin: “Right.”

Donna: “Oh, really?”

Grant: “This is his house.”

Jason: “Let’s get over there, let’s hear the stories and take it from there one step at a time.”

Grant: “We’ll play it by ear.”

TM: As opposed to pre-planning hoaxes. We’re going to be more spontaneous.

MB: Hoaxes?

TM: Just kidding. You know me.

Jason: “All right, guys?”

Steve: “Cool.”

Jason: “Let’s get out of here.”

The black caravan trundles through downtown Eureka Springs. [can a ghost be in 2 places?] Jason, Grant, and Steve approach the door of a Victorian house.

Jason: “Hi, Carroll?”

Carroll Heath, Homeowner: “Gentlemen? Yes.”

Jason: “Hi, I’m Jason from TAPS.”

Carroll: “Jason.”

Grant: “Grant.”

Carroll: “Grant.”

Grant: “This is Steve.”

Steve: “Nice to meet you, Carroll.”

Carroll: “Nice to meet you, gentlemen. Please come in.”

THE INVESTIGATION

DR. ELLIS’ HOUSE

THURSDAY 6:39 PM

Carroll interviews: “I certainly hope that TAPS gets on film our unseen friends. Anything we get on film will be really very wonderful.”

In the wake of the debacle which was the annual live Halloween broadcast for Ghost Hunters 2008, from Fort Delaware, in which Grant pitifully faked being accosted by a ghost and told to go away, he has opined that the only people who would stoop to question his veracity are haters of the show and the whole paranormal field.

Au contraire, ma pauvre petite belette. Only the deeply disappointed would be so outraged, to the point of dissecting the lameness in excruciating, mortifying detail. To wit – a former Ghost Hunters fan, named formerghfan, has labored mightily to reveal the Truth, in 3D. It would be quite devastating, if the notion of shame were part of the TAPS world view. Happily for Hans and Franz, it isn’t.

And there are more former fans rending their garments and crafting sorrowful videos, like this one. A lengthy and fascinating print vivisection of the episode may be read here.

Mme. B. is off sulking somewhere (although I think she believes the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum juju is directly responsible for this current disgrace) so I feel safe in contradicting her. Grant Wilson is Marianne Foyster. Next, he will enter into a bigamous marriage, move to North Dakota, and die in obscurity. Or, not. I hear he has been throwing coat hangers.

Mme. Blahblatsky and the Talking Mongoose recarp the Crescent Hotel, episode 213 of the second season of the make-believe reality show Ghost Hunters, in which a couple of Rhode Island plumbers try to improve their fortunes through hornswoggling the ever-gullible public, which is us.

MB: Are us?

TM: Silly silly Joe the Plumber, trying to make a living plumbing.

MB: If he were smart, he’d be out pretending to hunt for ghosts with a camera crew.

TM: It’s the American dream.

Disclaimer: Mme: Blahblatsky did not make up any of the quoted dialogue. She swears. It all belongs to Pilgrim Films and Television, Inc., who we suspect are putting it in old oil drums and dumping it somewhere south of Block Island.

Narrator: “On this episode of Ghost Hunters, TAPS travels to Arkansas to investigate a hotel with a macabre history. Will the spirit that haunts the morgue reveal itself? And then, Jason challenges a medium to prove his psychic abilities, and the tech team has an eye opening experience.”

TM: Did you know the narrator is sort of famous? He has a t.v. show in which he does things like work as a hippopotamus keeper, a charcoal maker, an owl vomit collector…

MB: Hippopotamus keeper – jeepers. Did he have to get in the water with them? That would be icky.

TM: I don’t know. That’s not the point. He’s making a perfectly good living on his own.

MB: I would not call wallowing in hippo poop perfectly good. Oh. And yet he’s still narrating for this crappy show.

MB: I still think he must cry himself to sleep at night. But wait – this is the episode with the fabulously creepy ghost on the thermal imaging camera. Why are we going here now?

TM: Oh, Mme.

MB: Oh, no.

TM: Oh, yes.

MB: God damn it all to hell. Will you leave me nothing?

TM: I’m sorry.

During the narrator’s introduction to tonight’s apparent folderol (per the goddamn Talking Mongoose), we see scenes with talk of body-parts storage, full-body apparitions, Grant’s mind blown, an insane something or other happening to Jason at a psychic’s house, and Steve and Dustin finding boogeymen in the woods.

MB: I’m still trying to understand how this happened. TAPS goes to a public hotel with 365 rooms on the upper decks of this gigantic ship. They set up an independent camera in the “haunted” room, not hooked up to any monitoring system, leave it running, leave the door unlocked…

TM: Heck, for all we know, they left the door open, and put a big sign outside saying “ghost hunt in progress – stop and say hi!”

MB: They leave the door – no – doors – multiple doors unlocked, leave the room totally untended, go off down into the bowels of the ship thousands of feet away to frolic for hours, and then pretend to get all distressed over the camera being messed with by “unknown” people. WHY? That’s what I want to know. I can actually understand why they would want to fake a door opening at the DeVille house and do a fake non-debunking. It was exciting! I bought it. You bought it. Countless chumps all over bought it. But what good does it do them to fake fakery on the Queen Mary? That’s just whacky.

TM: No, it’s not. It’s perfectly logical. You pointed it out yourself. There they are, in what is supposedly one of the most haunted places in the world, and they leave with footage of fakery. What if the hoax had not occurred?

MB: Then they would have had – uh – FLIR footage of a hot water tank in the engine room, and… a nice breakfast?

TM: The dreaded PERSONAL EXPERIENCES. Most Haunted had just spent three weeks – three weeks! – investigating the Queen Mary. Low-budget Ghost Hunters had one night, maybe two. They probably didn’t know what the Most Haunted crew got, which would have made them even more paranoid, although maybe Erika Frost told them?

TM: Yeah, I don’t know. I think it’s hooey. Never mind that. My point is what is going on in the teeny-tiny pea brains of TAPS’ lead investigators? What are they going to do here to make an impression?

MB: It would have been mortifying for them to find no evidence.

TM: Can you see Jason and Grant swaggering off the Queen Mary and announcing it’s not haunted? After all the other investigations done there? You can’t do a drive-by debunking of the Queen Mary. They are nowhere near that sure of themselves. And one of the reasons they aren’t that sure of themselves is because they cheat. So even though they assume everyone else cheats because they cheat, it also makes them think that everyone else can figure out that they cheat, which is why they are so bloody paranoid about being exposed as cheaters. Which is more veranoia than paranoia, but…

MB: You’re going off on a tangent.

TM: I know. But I was on a roll, and it just hit me why they throw people out of their forums and why they dump inconvenient TAPS family members.

MB: So the guys who are trying to set themselves up as the big American ghost hunters of the 21st century can’t afford to hang around the Queen Mary waiting for “scientific” evidence, but they’re too embarrassed to leave without something. Therefore…

TM: Bait and switch. Pre-emptive strike. Smoke and mirrors. Divert the attention elsewhere. It doesn’t even matter what the initial intention was, because it worked either way. Let’s say Grant did it, not expecting anyone would figure it out. Other than, of course, his partner in crime Jason, and at least someone at Pilgrim.

MB: Hoaxing on the Queen Mary must have been a cakewalk compared to hoaxing in the DeVille house.

TM: Then Dave Tango has to go and be all smart-ass, and while they may not have “undebunkable evidence” of a ghost in B-340, now they have Dave heroically rescuing them from being “tricked.”

MB: Don’t you know Steve hated that? And then everyone gets all depressed over being nearly done in by dastardly hoaxers, and it’s such a huge and smelly red herring that nobody even notices that they didn’t find any ghosts on the Queen Mary, and they don’t have to make fools of themselves by finding nothing, because they did find something.

TM: And they don’t have to say the Queen Mary isn’t haunted, because they had personal experiences, but – so sad – didn’t catch anything on film, sorry. And everyone’s happy.

MB: That’s sick.

TM: Isn’t it great?

MB: No, it is not! I can’t believe anything anymore. What’s left? Anything from the second season on is suspect. What’s left? Race Rock Lighthouse?

TM: Uh, about that…

MB: No. I do not want to know.

TM: Yeah, but…

MB: NOT NOW. I need some time to get used to all this. You know, I didn’t start this blog to be a naysayer. I wanted to do recaps, not recarps.

TM: I know. Poor Mme. Your idols turned out to have feet of clay, only not even real clay, but that kind you make out of cheap white bread and Elmer’s glue, which the weevils then eat.

MB: Oh, shut up. The paranormal field always has and always will be full of fakery. That I thought these idiots were going to be any different is just indicative of my innate chumpiness. Gullible? I still believed in the Easter Bunny when I was nine.

TM: You still believe in the Easter Bunny.

MB: Oh, shut up.

TM: If it’s any consolation, I still think a ghost shoved Frank DiAngelis.

MB: That’s probably because you so want the New Bedford Armory to be haunted.

TM: Not at all. Really. Hey, you know what we could do? We could dowse for answers to all our questions.

MB: You mean I could dowse for answers to all our questions. You couldn’t find water unless you fell into a well.

TM: Just get out the old pendulum and let’s see what it thinks. It’s just as reliable as those TAPS knuckleheads blabbering about Science, Truth and Honesty all the time.